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USA Hockey is the national governing body of recreational hockey in the U.S. Their site has links to local junior leagues across the country. More than 75% of their over 29,000 registered teams play in the age classifications of 17 or under. USA Hockey runs coaching clinics around the country, and certifies coaches from beginning the Associate level to Master level.

Ice Hockey Expert: Angela Ruggiero

Four-time Olympic medalist Angela Ruggiero brings a stellar resume to the position of MomsTeam's ice hockey expert. A native of Los Angeles, California and Harper Woods, Michigan, she graduated cum laude with a degree in government from Harvard College, where she was an NCAA First Team Academic All-American, Patty Kasmier Award winner (women's college hockey equivalent of the Hiesman Trphy), as well as one of the top eight student athletes in the entire NCAA in 2004.

Helmets

Hockey helmets are rounder and less elongated than other helmets to help reduce impact injuries sustained while playing hockey. Wire mesh faceguards/visors are utilized to help protect the face from injuries as well. A hockey helmet should cover the child's head, and fit snugly so that it is tight in every direction.

Ice Hockey: Fast-Paced and Physical

Hockey: Pronunciation: \ˈhä-kē\a game played on an ice rink by two teams
of six players on skates whose object is to drive a puck into the
opponents' goal with a hockey stick.

Hockey is a fast-paced, exciting games that is popular in North America, Canada,
and Europe. Generally, kids start playing hockey at an early age because it requires skating skills that take years of hard work to perfect.

Hockey is not a sport for every child: it not only requires dedication at a young age from the players, but also dedication from parents (as any parent who has driven her child to 5 a.m. practices will attest!).

Featured Articles

In her long road to recovery from post-concussion syndrome, two-time Olympic hockey star Caitlin Cahow had the best help a daughter could ask for, a mom who was there for her, no questions asked. Caitlin's mom, a physician herself, shares with MomsTEAM's Brooke de Lench her perspective on new treatment therapies.

A growing number of studies challenge the conventional wisdom that
inadequate athlete concussion knowledge is the
principal barrier to increased concussion symptom reporting. Because educating youth about the dangers of concussion is unlikely to improve concussion reporting, they say other ways need to be found to increase reporting, among them being to enlist coaches to help create
an environment where athletes feel safe in reporting.

The National Federation of State High School Association has approved changes strengthening the language of rules on dangerous hits and to give game officials discretion to penalize a player who illegally hits another player from behind with a game misconduct if the hit is deemed flagrant.

Teaching youth hockey players to anticipate collisions by using the "ready" position may reduce the risk of concussions in hockey, say the authors of a first-of-its-kind study
of head impact severity among youth ice hockey players. The study is
reported in the June 2010 journal Pediatrics.

Much has been made of the relative age effect (RAE) - that birth month is destiny for sports achievement - but the evidence is far from conclusive. It is true that some sports team rosters across the globe have a lot of players born in the first few months of the year, but there is more to this phenomenon than originally understood.